


My Heart Is Playing Hide-And-Seek (Wait And Count To Four)

by nessbess



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: All Standard Klaus warnings:, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Wibbley-Wobbley Timey-Wimey Stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2019-11-07 01:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17950913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessbess/pseuds/nessbess
Summary: Klaus had spent what felt like a lifetime searching for Dave after he died in 1968. But Dave found him first, long before that. Klaus was five years old the first time he appeared.





	1. A Light in the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts with a massive age difference between Klaus and Dave. Dave loves Klaus very much, but that love stays more protecting and guiding until all parties are of the age of consent. (Dave is getting no older. Klaus has time to catch up.)

Klaus was five years old the first time he appeared.

It was dark in his bedroom. So dark. _No lights after eight o'clock!_ A rule set by Father and reinforced by Mom and Pogo. Father had taken away his small night light earlier that day. "You are old enough, Number Four," he had announced at the breakfast table. "It is time to relinquish the crutches of your youth that are inhibiting your growth." Whatever that meant. Klaus still wasn't sure, beyond that it meant he had no break in the darkness.

And it  _was_ dark in his bedroom. So dark. But Klaus was not alone. In the darkness, _they_ came for him, with their stench of rot and the whisper of grasping fingers along his arms and shoulders, white with decay and dangling bits of flesh. In the darkness, they came with their hollow, hungry eyes and their mouths hanging open in piercing screams. They came with their pain and their anger and their loss and their need. Begging and demanding and threatening, all voices clamouring to be heard at once. In the darkness, they always came.

Sometimes, Klaus could escape by sneaking into Diego's room, or more often Ben's. The ghosts weren't any quieter, but they were easier to ignore with the press of another living body against his own. He had used to sneak into Allison's room, too. She had never minded, but once Luther had caught him creeping back to his own rooms in the greying of dawn and had been so angry, making Klaus promise to never do it again. The looming threat of Luther reporting him to Father was the only thing that kept him from spending all of his nights with his brothers. As it was, the majority of his nights were spent alone, curled up in a small ball in the corner of his bed, fists clamped tightly over his ears and his eyes and jaw clenched so tightly shut that his entire head ached.

"You're not real," sang the mantra in his mind. "You're not real, you're not real." He would not cry out. It was highly irresponsible of him to keep his brothers and sisters and Pogo and Mom and especially Father awake all night with his babyish whinging. He would not cry out. "You're not real, you're not real, you're not real." He would show his father that he could be good, that he didn't need the light, that he was trying. He would not cry out. "You're not real."

A breath across his cheek, ruffling through his hair.

A whimper rose in the back of his throat. He ground his teeth harder, rolling his face further into his pillow. He would not cry out. He would not cry out. They were not real.

But he knew that was a lie. For him, the ghosts were always real.

"Help me."

"My daughter, he still has my daughter!"

"Please."

"Look at me!"

"I know he did it, he killed me and they just let him go-"

"Johnny. Have you seen my Johnny?"

"Pathetic little bitch of a boy, crying into his pillow."

"I'm going to kill the bastards who did this to me."

"I didn't do it! I swear I didn't!"

"Why don't you just fucking listen to me?"

"Please-"

"You have to-"

"I need-"

"Helpmehelpme _helpmehelpme_ -"

"Just fucking-"

" _Klaus._ "

The name was a sigh, so different from the usual screams that Klaus almost didn't hear it. The lights flared, the glow bleeding red through his eyelids. Klaus slowly sat up, blinking as the world quieted and the ghosts faded. He tentatively lowered his hands from his ears, staring in disbelief at the man who stood by the door, one hand still resting upon the light switch.

He was beautiful. All golden hair, blue eyes, pink lips and dark green clothes. He reminded Klaus a bit of the beetles he liked to catch in the gardens. So full of colour, like if he caught the sunlight just right, he would dance with rainbows. Even with the hole in his chest, gaping and bloody and marring his perfection, he was the most beautiful person Klaus had ever seen. Klaus wanted to stare at him forever, soaking in his kind eyes and gentle smile.

"Klaus?" he asked again, his voice trembling like the way Klaus felt when standing on the attic window ledge, leaning forwards until the blood rushed through him and locked his knees and that delicious jolt of energy sent him jolting back to safety.

"Who're you?" Klaus asked. His throat felt raw and his jaw ached fiercely.

The man's answering smile filled Klaus with warmth, chasing away the icy tendrils of his lingering fear. "I'm Dave," he said, impossibly softly as he slowly approached to stand by the bed. He reached out a hand, the backs of his fingers hovering just over Klaus's cheek. "You're going to be alright."

The man's words filled him with a certainty, and Klaus knew he was right. He sniffled and nodded, wiping his tears away with the sleeve of his pajamas. He wanted Dave to see that he could be brave.

A gentle knock on the door, and Mom stepped into the room. "You know the rules, Klaus," she said kindly. "Lights out after eight o'clock. It's time for sleeping."

"Yes, Mother," he said as she gave his forehead a quick kiss and turned off the light as she left. He didn't need the light. Dave would keep the other ghosts away.


	2. The Break of Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read and commented and left kudos on the first chapter. <3
> 
> There were a lot of comments about how cute and "wholesome" it was, so... I feel a bit obligated to say that I intend for this story to be as close to canon compliant as I can make it. The way I see it working for this story, Klaus meeting Dave in '68 is a Fixed Event. It had to happen in order for this story to happen, and Klaus had to detox with Hazel and Cha Cha and stumble across a briefcase potentially stuffed with money and/or jewels for _that_ to happen. So this story is going to get dark. It's going to have angst and Klaus-typical drug use and Klaus-pain and Dave-pain and it's going to get emotionally messy. Because I may dabble in fluff, but I am an angst lover at heart. Ye have been warned. 
> 
> Also, I am mentally a 58 year old and I am the actual worst at writing anyone younger than 15, so... I apologize that everyone in this fic is flip flopping between super mature and extremely childish. I'm trying. Without further ado, here be chapter two:

Klaus woke feeling better rested than he could remember ever being before. He stretched languidly, arms reaching over his head. It felt so good that he kept on stretching, his back arching, legs extending, body bending backwards into a C-shape and then twisting into almost an S. His breath stuttered out in a croaking groan and he probably would have continued on stretching until breakfast time if not for the quiet huff of laughter.

Klaus instantly dropped out of his stretch, focusing on the figure propped in the corner of his room. Dave sat against the wall, hands loosely clasped between his knees as he regarded Klaus with a gentle amusement.

"Feeling better?" he asked teasingly.

"Dave!" Klaus gasped, scrambling onto his knees. "You're still here!"

Something dark flickered behind Dave's eyes, there and gone so quickly Klaus might have imagined it. "Of course," he said. "I'm not just going to leave you."

Klaus frowned. He wasn't used to people wanting to be around him. Diego quickly got annoyed with him. Allison would sometimes let him dress up with her, but only when Luther was busy. Even Ben preferred his books to playing with Klaus. The only people who ever sought him out were the dead, but even though he was one of them, Dave was so different from them.

"...If that's okay with you," Dave added after a long pause, chewing at the corner of his lip, his eyes pleading.

"Why?" Klaus asked suspiciously.

Dave's smile seemed out of place on his face. His mouth said 'happy', but his eyes said 'sad'. "You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago," he said. "Someone that I loved very much."

"Oh," Klaus said, nodding in understanding even as he grew more and more confused. He didn't know much about love, but he had heard Allison gushing about it enough times to know the basics. "What was her name?"

Dave's sad smile tugged into something a bit more genuine. " _His_ name was Klaus," he said easily.

A thousand different emotions rushed through Klaus. Allison had insisted that love was meant for a prince and a princess, but Dave was a boy and he said that he had loved a boy. And he was a grownup! He had to know better than she did. And-

"Hey!" Klaus realized abruptly, "That's my name!"

"Yes," Dave's grin now stretched across his face. "He was a lot like you."

Klaus thought about this. He decided he quite liked the idea of being like someone whom a man like Dave could care for.

"What happened to him? After you died, I mean?" Klaus asked.

Dave's gaze went far away, all traces of happiness sliding from his face. The silenced stretched. Klaus felt it like an itching under his skin.

"I don't know," Dave said after an eternity, just as Klaus was about to try taking the question back. "I don't know."

They sat together, in their opposite corners of Klaus's room, Dave lost in an oppressive gloom and Klaus fidgeting helplessly, angry at himself for taking Dave's smile away. He likes Dave's smile. It's kind and bright and beautiful, and he looks at Klaus like that smile is just for him. He feels guilty for making Dave sad again, but he doesn't know how to bring the smile back.

"I'm sorry," he says. Because there's nothing else that he _can_ say. Because he _is_.

Dave's eyes refocus on him. For a moment he looks startled before his sad smile returns. "It's okay," he says, and "It was a long time ago," and "He'll find me again." His smile goes a bit private. A bit amused. A bit wistful. Klaus feels like he's missing the joke, only he gets the sense that the joke isn't so funny after all.

The gentle tinkling of a bell breaks through their tension, and Klaus looks up with an eager grin. "Breakfast!" he exclaims. "Do you like waffles? Mother usually makes us have porridge, but sometimes we get eggs and bacon and waffles."

Dave's smile is back, illuminating his face and chasing away his clouds.

"I like waffles," Dave agrees. His smile turns mischievous. "I like porridge, too." He barks out a laugh at the face of disgust that Klaus makes, and Klaus vows then and there to do everything he can to make Dave laugh more often, for as long as he will stay. He likes the way it wrinkles up in the corners of his eyes and how it folds dimples into his cheeks. Klaus thinks it's like looking into the sun; how it hurts a bit, but you don't want to look away. Then, when you finally do, you can see nothing but the echo if it, blotting out everything else for hours. 

Klaus thinks that he could be a flower; all he would need to thrive was this sun. He thinks he will be turning towards it forever.

When they get to the breakfast room, the rest of the family is already there. Klaus slides into the empty chair, wilting under the unimpressed shake of Pogo's head. Mom squeezes his shoulder as she places a bowl of porridge in front of him. He sighs, hearing the playful mocking in Dave's laughter.

"Number Four, report," Father orders crisply as he sweeps a napkin into his lap with a flourish.

"Sanctimonious prick," Dave mutters, leaning against the cabinetry behind Klaus. Klaus doesn't know what that means, apart from _naughty_ and thereby _fun_ , and he stifles a giggle by choking exaggeratedly on a big swig of orange juice.

"Number Four!" Father scolds, eyeing him sternly. Diego gives him a helpful thump on the back that only makes Klaus splutter harder.

"I managed," Klaus said once he wrestled his breathing back under his control. "They started off strong, but they went away and I got to sleep okay."

Across the table, Ben met his eyes and gave him an encouraging smile.

"And how did you silence them?" Father cut his pancakes into neat triangles. Klaus watched jealously, his spoon carving lumpy trails through his bowl.

"Number Four?" Father prompted impatiently.

"I didn't," Klaus said. He scratched nervously at the back of his neck. "Davedid."

"Enunciate, Number Four, stop mumbling into your porridge."

"I said, Dave did," Klaus repeated. "He turned on a light and made them go away."

The silence lengthened, and Klaus glanced up to see that all of his siblings and Father were watching him.

"And who is this 'Dave'?" Father frowned at him.

"A ghost."

The silence stretched again, and Klaus didn't dare look up from his porridge.

"I see," Father said at long last. "Number Four, your individual training will begin tomorrow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In no way did I intend the whole blatant DAVE IS THE SUN that just jumps out and punches you in the face here, but we're rolling with it. Klaus is absurdly poetic for a tadpole.


	3. Lost in Translation

Klaus slumped in his chair, body aching with exhaustion. They had been at it for the last two hours. His scalp was itching from the weird sticky pads connecting his brain to Father's machines and monitors, and his head was pounding from the incessant nattering of the angry woman somewhere behind him.

Behind Father and Pogo, Dave paced back and forth like a caged lion, running his hands through his hair. He paused in his tracks to address the other ghost. "Look, you seem like a lovely woman, but we don't speak your language and you're just giving the kid a headache. Could you please be quiet?"

The woman, noticing that Dave was speaking to her, only began to talk more loudly, pleading with Dave for something. He shook his head and shrugged at Klaus helplessly as the pitch of her unfamiliar words sent a sharp spike of pain through his skull.

Klaus clamped his hands over his ears, fingers brushing Father's wires. "Please stop," he moaned. "I'm sorry. I don't understand. Please stop."

Father frowned over the top of his computers at Klaus. "You are not trying, Number Four. Focus!"

"I don't speak Spanish!" Klaus tried to explain. "I don't know what she's saying!"

"The connection you have with the dead stems from within your own consciousness, Number Four," Father's voice was clipped with impatience and Klaus sagged. "You do not understand her because you do not _wish_ to understand her. You must become the master of your own mind or you will be lost forever." He stared intently at Klaus, who stared at his own knees and tried to ignore the Hispanic woman.

Father huffed an irritated breath and gestured for Pogo to shut down the machines. "I had hoped that we would make more progress today," he said coldly, "but you cannot teach an unwilling pupil." Klaus kept his eyes on his knees as Pogo peeled the sticky pods from his head with gentle fingers. "I had expected better from you, Number Four."

"You manipulative asshole," Dave muttered angrily under his breath.

"I am adding one hour of meditation to your daily schedule," Father continued briskly. "Your mind is weak, and you will achieve nothing if you continue to submit to your fears."

Pogo finished disassembling the equipment and began to wheel it from the room. Father sat behind his desk and flipped open his journal. "Leave me," he said as he dipped an ornate feather into a pot of ink. Klaus scrambled from the room, not needing to be told twice. Dave followed right behind him and the woman trailed loosely after.

Now that he was out of the chair, Klaus could see her properly. She looked to be a couple of years younger than Mom, through it was hard to tell with grown-ups. She wore a simple yellow dress and her skin was a creamy brown, her face unlined apart from the agitated furrow of her brow. Her eyes were big and dark and kind, but there was something in the way she looked at him, so lost and desperate, that drew Klaus in. He couldn't look away. She said something beseechingly, but Klaus could only shake his head. "I don't-"

"Klaus!" Dave interrupted, and Klaus turned just in time to smack right into Vanya as she tried to walk past.

"Oh!" Vanya cried out as she tumbled to the floor. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!"

"Vanya?" Klaus grabbed her arms to help her up. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh. I was just... It doesn't matter," she flushed. "I'm sorry. Are you alright?"

"Me?" Klaus blinked in surprise. She was the one who had fallen. "Yeah, just. You know." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Training."

Vanya nodded, glancing at her shoes. Klaus chewed at his lips as he watched her. It hadn't been that long since Vanya had gotten sick and had to be locked away. She had always been quieter than the rest of his brothers and sisters, but there had been a fire to her, as well. She had been something bright and defiant and untouchable. The sickness seemed to have taken that away. Now she stood as a pale shadow of what she had been before. Klaus hesitated. He didn't know how to speak to this new, meek version of his sister. He exchanged a brief frown with Dave.

"Is she alright?" Dave asked. His brow was furrowed with concern. "She seems nervous."

"Sorry I pushed you over," Klaus offered. "Are you alright."

"Oh," Vanya said again. "Yes."

Klaus nodded awkwardly. He could see Vanya fidget a bit, wanting to leave, but there was a strange thirst in her eyes as well. Klaus thought that she was probably lonely. "Are you starting again? Training with Dad?"

Vanya shook her head. "He gave up on trying to find anything special in me," she said simply.

"Oh," Klaus said, lightly mimicking Vanya. She rewarded him with a tiny, amused smile curling the corners of her mouth. Something tugged at Klaus's brain, some unanswered questions, but he pushed them aside. He was tired and his head still ached fiercely and the woman was still talking quietly to herself.

"Hot chocolate?" Klaus asked his companions. Dave gave him an indulgent smile and the woman merely watched him with her big eyes, so he turned back to grin at Vanya. "Great. I'm going to ask Mom for some hot chocolate. Want to come?"

She smiled up at him tentatively.

*     *     *

 Hanging out with Vanya was a bit weird. She sat curled over her mug of hot chocolate, taking up as little space as possible, and would rarely meet his eyes. A bit weird, but a bit nice, Klaus decided. All of his other siblings were laud and boisterous and demanding attention. Just like him. Just like his ghosts. But Vanya was quiet. She listened.

"Did-" Vanya hesitated, then tried again. "Did Dave really turn on the lights the other night?"

"Yeah!" Klaus beamed. Dave was quickly becoming his favourite thing to talk about. "He was like a real hero, saving people just like we will some day!" Vanya's small smile froze, but Klaus didn't notice. "He turned on the lights and scared all the other ghosts away."

"That's pretty cool."

" _So_ cool," Klaus agreed eagerly.

Vanya used her finger to fish a bit of marshmallow out of her cup and stuck it into her mouth. "Do you think that was a 'Dave' thing or a 'you' thing?" she wondered.

Klaus shrugged. "Dunno. Dad and Dave both seem to think it was a 'me' thing, but I don't remember doing anything. And Dad seemed to think I was pretty useless after training today," he said.

"It was your first one," Vanya said comfortingly. "He knows you have a power, he's going to want to study it more. Maybe it's like Allison's and you just have to figure out how to make it work."

"Yeah," Klaus said dully. He wished that he didn't have a power, that the ghosts would just leave him alone. Well. Except for Dave. He was alright. And the Hispanic lady wasn't so bad now that she'd stopped her jabbering.

"You'll get there, Klaus," Dave said. "We'll figure it out."

"Yeah," Klaus said again, making his marshmallow bob idly in his hot chocolate.

Diego wandered into the kitchen, no doubt making one of his very unstealthy sneaks to the knife block. He glanced between Klaus and Vanya and protested, "You're having hot chocolate w-w- _without_ me?"

The woman chose that moment to begin wailing loudly, her nonsensical words intermingling with wracking sobs. "Will you just shut _up_!" He yelled in aggravation, hurling his hot chocolate at her. The ceramic shattered against the wall, coating the floral paper in sticky chocolate. The woman gave him a glare of pure hatred, but she stopped yelling and stomped away.

"The h- _hell_ was that for?" Diego demanded, slapping him up the backside of his head and almost pitching him into the table.

"Ow," Klaus grimaced, rubbing at his head and scowling at his brother.

"Oh dear, what a mess!" Mom scolded lightly from her perch by the sunny window. "I'll just whip up another batch shall I?"

Surprising them all, Vanya started to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter where they are five year olds (phew!). I could just bluster through and say they all had to grow up very quickly with Reginald as a father, but the fact remains that I am just crap at writing children. They should be having more age-relevant conversations and thoughts from here on out.
> 
> A little bit of useless trivia since it doesn't have much relevance to the story, it's never stated, and Klaus never finds out: The second ghost in this chapter was intended to be Diego's birth mother.


	4. Whispers in the Dark

By the time Klaus was seven years old, he had fallen into an easy routine. His days consisted mainly of breakfast with Mom and his siblings, training with an irate Dad, and schooling with Pogo. Klaus hated the classes, but he had learned that nicked sweets from the kitchen would tempt Vanya into letting him copy her math work, and history lessons were much more interesting when he could pester  Ben into reading their texts and memoirs aloud. After the silent dinners where Klaus entertained himself by making increasingly grotesque faces at Diego until Diego flicked peas or a bread roll or whatever else was convenient off of Klaus's forehead, the evenings belonged to Dave.

After two years of constant companionship, the soldier had become Klaus's dearest friend. His only friend, if one wasn't counting his siblings. At night, the Others would still come, drawn by the darkness and by Klaus's aura, but for the most part they left him alone. They seemed content to stand back and watch as Klaus talked and laughed and gossiped with Dave until the early hours of the morning. They seemed to thrive in Klaus's presence, feeding off of his energy and his stories as they became seemingly more human, more self-aware, less the hungry, desperate creatures of the dark, until dawn turned the blackness to gray and once again they faded away.

"What does it feel like?" Klaus asked one night as he laid in bed, Dave reclining against the headboard beside him. "Being dead?"

Dave had frowned and shrugged. "I don't know, really," he admitted. "I didn't really notice much of anything, until I sensed you. It didn't really feel like anything. I wasn't aware that I was dead or that I had once been alive, or anything like that. I just wasn't."

"But being near me changes that?" Klaus prodded.

"Yeah," Dave said. "But I'm not sure if that's a 'you' thing, or a ' _you_ ' thing."

Weeks later, his reply was still plaguing Klaus. He had been thinking about it constantly, and he still had no idea what Dave had meant. The man in question had just smiled sadly when Klaus had asked him to explain. "It means, I don't know if it's because of your abilities, or because of who you are," he said. That reply had only furthered Klaus's confusion. He _was_ his power. They were one and the same. He was Number Four.

"Hey, Dave?" Klaus asked, on the cusp of sleep.

"Hmm?"

"Tell me about war. What's it like?"

"Oh." Dave was silent for a long time and Klaus rolled to face him, wondering if he would answer. It had been two years that Klaus had known Dave, and it felt like all of his life. In some ways, though, Klaus felt as if he hardly knew Dave at all. He came across as an open book, never failing to answer Klaus's questions and always giving more when Klaus prodded. At the same time, though, Klaus got the feeling that there was a part of Dave that he kept locked away, guarded heavily close to his heart. It was there in the shield that sometimes flashed behind his eyes when an innocent question brought out more emotion that Klaus had thought possible. It was there in the way that what should have been an easy smile sometimes looked as if it weighed a thousand pounds. In someways, Klaus felt as though he were teetering on the edge of a precipice. _This_ will be the time that he won't answer. _This_ will upset the boundary. _This_ will be the push too far and everything will come crumbling down.

 Just as Klaus was about to give up, to close his eyes and chase some semblance of sleep, Dave spoke again.

"War is loud," he said, "and messy and chaotic. It's men screaming and dying and so many ghosts, all angry, all hungry. It's ground slippery with mud and the blood of your enemies and the blood of your friends, and the air is clouded with dirt and gunpowder and smoke. War is a monster that thirsts for human life, and it can't get enough. It will never have enough. It just feeds and feeds and feeds and demands more." Klaus watched with wide eyes as Dave drew a shaky breath. He looked embarrassed and offered Klaus a feeble smile.

"But war is also brotherhood and comradery. It's knowing that there will always be someone to look out for, and that there will always be someone looking out for you. War is the darkest of places, but it forms the deepest of bonds."

Klaus nodded thoughtfully. War didn't sound that much different from seeing ghosts, to him. They were as loud and violent and fearsome as some of the horrors that Dave had described, and the friendship was kind of like what he already had with Dave. Dave was always watching over him, and he liked to think that he could look out for Dave, too.

"Do you think that I would be good in a war?" Klaus asked hopefully.

Dave barked out a surprised laugh. "No," he said, sounding all too confident for Klaus's pride. He pouted. "No, I think that you would be terrible in a war. All nervous energy and flailing limbs and a complete disinterest in following orders. You'd be a mess, shooting at the ghosts of the dead as often as at the living, and you'd be a complete liability." Dave's voice had lowered into something fond and nostalgic. Something that sounded, to Klaus, almost sad. "You would be a terrible soldier, but you would be a wonderful companion. It would have been my deepest honour to fight by your side, Klaus Hargreeves."

There was a strange intensity in Dave's eyes as they met Klaus's. There was a pain and a longing. Hope and sorrow and love and guilt and _home_ , and Klaus didn't know what to do with it all.

"Oh," he said, swallowing away the sudden dryness in his mouth. His gaze flickered back and forth, back and forth, unable to meet Dave's for long.

Dave gave a short, wet-sounding laugh. "I'm sorry," he said, blinking furiously and dragging his palms over his face. "Thinking of the war just... It drags up a lot of memories."

"Yeah," Klaus said. His eyes drifted to the blood-wet fabric across Dave's chest. He knew that the memories surrounding their deaths were always the rawest for ghosts. Sometimes, he found it all too easy to forget that Dave was one of them. He rolled to face the wall, willing sleep to claim him. "Goodnight, Dave," he said.

"Goodnight, Klaus," came the immediate reply.

Sleep tugged at him, promising warmth and comfort and oblivion. Just before it pulled him under, Klaus thought he heard another whisper.

" _I love you_."

He couldn't be entirely certain that he had heard it, but the words filled him, warming him from the inside out like a sip of hot chocolate on a grey winter's day. It was the first time he could remember having ever heard those words spoken to him. Imagined or not, he knew that he would carry that moment with him forever.

As a dolphin crests the waves and glides smoothly back under, so did Klaus glide into sleep with a small smile upon his face and a warmth in his heart.

That night, Klaus dreamt of war. Of bodies falling, and endless stream of ghosts filling the spaces they left. Fire streaked the sky overhead and mortar shook the grounds below. But none of that mattered, so long as he followed that head of golden hair that shone like a beacon. As long as he kept that man within his line of sight, everything would be alright. Nothing else mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is by no means where I had intended for this chapter to go, but it somehow took on a life of its own. Thank you for reading!  
> Next chapter, the mausoleum. (Assuming, of course, that our boys allow me back into the driver's seat.)


	5. Into the Hellmouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has been leaving comments. They give me so much joy and I do a little happy dance every time I see a new one pop up and then reread them all thirty-seven times.

Klaus tucked his hands behind his back, trying to keep himself from fidgeting while he waited to be acknowledged. It was an hour after suppertime. Usually, Klaus would be in the lounge with his siblings at this time of day, working though the day's schooling assignments under Pogo's watchful eye. This evening, he and Pogo had instead been summoned to Father's study while Mom filled Pogo's usual role.

Dave shifted his weight from foot to foot beside him. Father turned the page in his journal and kept on reading. Pogo stood at attention behind Father, watching Klaus with his large, sad eyes. Klaus folded his hands more tightly together. Father scratched at his nose with the end of his pen. Klaus's own nose began to itch. He scrunched his face. Dave went to read over Father's shoulder. Father closed his journal with a snap and Dave jumped back in surprise, looking determinedly _not guilty_ even though Hargreeves could not see him.

"Do you know why you are here, Number Four?" Father asked, his tone mild and detached.

"No, Sir," Klaus admitted. His nose gave another violent twitch of itchiness. He felt his eyes began to water.

"I see." His permanent frown gained a few more degrees of disapproval. "And how much progress do you believe that you have made since we first began your training over two years ago?"

"I..." Klaus swallowed nervously. "I don't know, Sir."

"The answer to that, Number Four," Father said, removing his monocle to wipe at an invisible smudge, "is none. You have made not one bit of progress. In fact, I believe one could even say that you have _re-_ gressed. You appear to be, though I would have thought it to be impossible, even farther from mastering your abilities than when your training first began." He blew on the monocle, fogging it with his breath and squinted at it in evaluation before tucking it back underneath his eyebrow. "Can you tell me why that is?"

Klaus glanced from Pogo to Dave and back to Hargreeves, chewing his lip. He shook his head. "I don't know, Sir."

Father sat back, unimpressed. "You are making no progress, Number Four," he explained patiently, "because you are consumed by the fear of your own capabilities. You cannot master your abilities, you cannot even begin to develop them because you fear that giving these spirits any form of substance will give them a mastery over you. You must learn that they do not control you; you command them. Do you understand?"

Klaus looked again to Dave, who was studying Hargreeves contemplatively. There was something like a begrudging respect in his gaze. "I understand, Father," Klaus said, looking back at the man.

Father sighed heavily. "No, I don't believe that you do. But I believe that you _want_ to understand, which I suppose is the first step."

Klaus lowered his head in shame, though not before catching Dave's expression change to anger.

"The first step - and I suppose that was an error of judgement on my part, I should have started you with this years ago. Perhaps I had more faith in your dedication to training, then. The first step is to overcome all of this fear." He made a loose gesture that encompassed Klaus from head to toe. "And to accomplish that, I have a little... _behavioural exercise_ , if you will."

At that, Klaus frowned, wondering what he could mean. Dave, too, was troubled by the phrase. "Behavioural exercise?" he questioned.

"If you would follow me, Number Four," Father said before beginning a crisp march out of his office. "Pogo!"

"Come along, Master Klaus," Pogo prompted when Klaus did nothing but stare blankly after him.

"Where is he going? Where is he taking you?" Dave demanded as he walked beside Klaus and Pogo. The farther they walked, the more distressed he became. "What behavioural exercise? Klaus. Where is he taking you?"

They walked through the hall, following in Father's footsteps, Pogo's hand a guiding weight at Klaus's elbow. Down the stairs. Across the landing. Down another flight. Across the foyer.

"Where is he going?" Dave demanded, the veins on his neck beginning to bulge. "Klaus, _where is he taking you_?"

Klaus stumbled along, steadied by Pogo's hand at his elbow. "Where are we going?" he asked, his voice a small and fragile thing.

"Not far now, young Master," was all that Pogo replied. He attempted to offer a comforting smile, but it was no match for the regret in his eyes. "Master Hargreeves knows best."

"No," Dave whispered as they stepped over the threshold and into the manor's grounds. His whisper became a shout. "No. No! Don't you _dare_ take him there! Pogo! Pogo, please don't do this. _Don't do this to him!_ ".

Klaus could only stare in shock as helpless tears rolled down Dave's face. He didn't know where this sudden panic had sprouted from. He hadn't known that ghosts could cry.

"Pogo!" he continued to scream. "Diego! Klaus, _please_. Please get help. Diego! Five! Ben!"

Dave released a wordless scream. Rage and despair and helplessness. Klaus watched him with wide eyes. So much passion, risen from no discernible source... In that moment, Klaus would be embarrassed to admit that he found himself to be almost afraid of Dave.

"Damn it Klaus," Dave cried. "Please! Don't let him do this. Don't let him take you." Tears rolled down his face, hot and heavy and earnest. Even in his anger and his fear, this was still Dave. His ghost. His friend. His _Dave_. The one who had promised to always be by his side. The one who loved him. "Please," Dave said.

"Father?" Klaus tried, his voice soft and frightened. "Please. Pogo, I don't want to go. I'll do better. I will! I promise."

Pogo's grip on his arm squeezed, offering minute comfort, but he forged onward.

"You will achieve nothing if you do not first master your fear, Number Four," Father said simply. "This is for your own benefit."

The air around them was growing steadily colder, heavier, filling with a tangible sense of foreboding. Dave hovered close to his shoulder, his presence offering what comfort he could. They came to a stop before a small stack of rough stone steps, leading down to a similarly rough set of stone doors set into the earth.

Pogo looked to Hargreeves and, at his nod, released Klaus in order to haul open one of the doors.

"In you go," Father said. "There's a good lad. I will come for you at first light."

"No," Dave moaned, the sound full of pain and absent hope. "No, no, no. Don't go in, Klaus," he pleaded. "Don't go in. Just run. Please. Just run."

Klaus looked from Father, his face a stoic mask, to Pogo, heavy with regret but standing firm. He knew that he had no choice. He looked into the darkness beyond the open door. The darkness stared back. There were demons in there. They waited, hungry, with bated breath.

"No," Dave begged, his voice barely a whisper. "Just run."

Klaus stepped into the darkness.

Dave followed close behind.

The door shut behind them with a reverberating groan.

Klaus paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the near-complete darkness. The thin sliver of moonlight peeking through the small cracks between the doors where the rough stones didn't quite meet was the only source of light. The air, too, was colder in here. And heavier. It weighed upon Klaus, pressing at him, his breath coming shorter and shorter and leaving him gasping. It was too crowded in there. There wasn't enough air. A dull ache started up between his eyes.

"Klaus." A voice. Quiet. Gentle. Coaxing. "You're okay. Relax." Dave.

"Dave," Klaus said aloud, finding comfort in his proximity.

"I'm here," he confirmed. Klaus's eyes slowly adjusted to the light. "You're okay," he repeated. "I'm here."

And so were _they_.

Klaus's eyes widened as he saw them. His steadying breath became quick, rasping gasps. He could feel his hands growing clammy, trembling uselessly at his sides. His head felt faint. A steady buzzing revved in his ears.

There were so many of them. And they were _wrong_. It hurt his eyes to focus on them for too long. They were slimy, rotten things. Left too long in the dark. Forgotten. Their bodies were twisted and grotesque, some with too many limbs, some seemingly formed with only a baseline approximation of what humans were supposed to look like. And their faces - Klaus shuddered, a full-bodied spasm that had him aching with tension - their faces were just colorless smears. Their eyes wide, staring, hungry, _angry._ Their mouths gaping holes. All other features melted away like wax dolls over a flame.

"They're cursed," Dave breathed in realization. "They must be. They're trapped here and cursed."

Dave's voice broke the stillness, broke through whatever shock had frozen them all in place like the shot of a starter pistol at a racetrack. There was a breath, a hush, and then they charged.

An unearthly scream filled the tomb, torn from countless mouths, countless ravaged tongues. It rose in a song of pain and longing and rage and hatred and so much hunger. Like a pack of wild dogs, they swarmed. Too-long fingers grasped at Klaus, raising goose pimples and trailing a sense of malice before another shoved them aside and the two fell upon each other, tearing and snapping and screaming, though never truly harming each other. Not even the dead could kill the dead. Wherever one was pulled away, another quickly filled it's place in a ceaseless stream of ravenous beasts.

Klaus curled into a tight ball as the beings fought over him, tearing each other apart and screaming their fury as they reformed, filling Klaus with their ice and their malevolence, stealing his warmth, feeding upon the glow of his aura that had always attracted the dead to him like moths to a flame. He choked on his own tears and snot, the air around him tasting like death, like pain and misery and hatred and madness. Dimly, Klaus was aware of Dave yelling in the background, of him throwing punches and of him being flung across the room, crashing into the far wall only to bounce right back up and into the fray, resuming his yelling and swinging at the insurmountable odds.

Klaus clamped his hands over his ears and tucked his face into his knees. He screamed, his voice adding to the cacophony. The stone beneath him grew wet, the stench of piss and panic adding to the stale neglect of the mausoleum.

The beings continued their nightmarish screams, their restless, hungry grasping. At some point, Dave had crawled to his side. His hands hovered over Klaus's balled form, cradling him, attempting to shield him from the Others with his body.

"You're okay, Klaus," he maintained his quiet, desperate mantra. "You're okay. You're okay. You're okay."

Hours passed. The faint light through the door crack began to grow brighter. Slowly, the heavy doors opened with the screech of stone on stone.

Sir Hargreeves stood silhouetted against the morning light. Klaus sniffled, too exhausted to do more than wipe at his sodden cheeks as he peered up, blinking against the light.

"Well?" Hargreeves asked. "Have you overcome your fear of the dead?"

Klaus nodded hopefully, shifting into a crouch and ready to spring out through the doors as soon as Hargreeves gave the word. His muscles were cramped and sore from hours of tension huddled in the same position.

Hargreeves studied him impassively. "Three more hours," he said, and gestured for Pogo to close the door.


	6. The Pervasive Chill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for your wonderful comments on the last chapter. As a writer, nothing brings more joy than the feeling of having that "new comment" email pop up. I'm glad you enjoyed my lil ghosties :3 I solemnly swear to be better about replying to individual comments. I appreciate them all so much and I will be the master of my dumbassery.
> 
> And Klaus proclaims that dad locked him in the mausoleum when he was thirteen, but IMDb lists young Klaus at age 8, so... I'm still kind of in the ballpark? I said I was going to stay true to canon and that's still the goal, but we'll see how well I end up holding to that.

Klaus shivered violently, hugging his knees tightly against his chest. Even as the water raised livid blotches of red against his skin and filled the small bathroom with steam, the cold of the mausoleum had sunken into his bones, stuffing him full of ice before resewing him with clumsy, jagged stitches. His hands shook as he adjusted the tap to flow a few degrees hotter.

He was peripherally aware of Dave, maintaining a silent vigil by the door. Klaus couldn't bring himself to look directly at him. The one time he had tried, Dave's face had sort of _smeared_ , there and gone and back again, horrifically melting and then re-solidifying in the blink of an eye. Dave hadn't tried to speak to him or recapture his attention since. He merely stood there, broadcasting unease like television static. Klaus swallowed hard, bowing under the force of his guilt. He had done that. He had made Dave so uncomfortable that he couldn't even speak to Klaus. And why would he want to?

The ball of soiled clothing in the corner drew Klaus's gaze. Hot shame prickled at the corners of his eyes. Only babies wet their pants. Once, Dave might have wanted to be Klaus's friend. But now he would know the truth. Dave was big and strong and brave and beautiful. And Klaus could hide no longer. All that he was had been exposed for Dave to judge, and Klaus knew that he would be found wanting. Dave was a war hero, sure and focused and confident. And Klaus was a great, sniveling baby who was afraid of the dark and peed his pants.

"I'm sorry," Klaus said, the words bursting from his chest with the sudden force of his need to explain, to clear this heavy thing in the air between them, suffocating him. "I'm sorry. I tried to be brave. I'm sorry, I couldn't - I _wanted_ to be brave." To his embarrassment, his voice crackled with emotion, a dry sob heaving, strangled.

And then Dave was before him, filling his vision with gentle blue eyes, his heart swelling with an emotion too big for Klaus to name, too much for his small frame to contain. "No," Dave's voice was soft but insistent. "No. You have nothing to be sorry for, Klaus. You're a survivor. You're a fighter. And I'm so incredibly proud of you." His hands reached out, unable to touch, but cradling the air around Klaus's face. "You've beaten so much more than I could ever comprehend. You're so much stronger than I've ever imagined," he swallowed hard, seeming to catch himself, and he slowly withdrew. "And you will beat this, too. You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing. _He's_ the one who should be ashamed, for daring to call himself a father." And then, so gently that Klaus was sure he hadn't been intended to hear it, Dave growled, "If I ever get my hands on that scumbag, I will tear him apart for this."

Klaus shut off the water and sank back until only his face was above the surface. The water lapped at his cheeks, scalding, chasing away phantom fingertips, yet still he felt unbearably cold. "I am sorry, though," he said. "I wanted to fight them. I wanted to be brave like you."

"Klaus." Underwater, Dave's voice sounded hollow and echoing. " _Klaus_ ," he said again, huffing a small, humorless laugh. "There are so many different kinds of bravery. There are so many different ways to fight. I think that you might be the bravest person that I've ever met."

Klaus turned to look at him, reading the honesty painted across his face. It struck something within him, broke it, and his face scrunched, vision blurring and briefly warping Dave's face again. The feeling crested, and the the tears spilled over, his world refocused and he was sobbing in earnest. Dave crouched close to the edge of the bath, his own eyes shiny with unshed tears.

"You're alright, Klaus," he said, the words almost an order. "You're out of there." His hands hovered uselessly over Klaus's face, over his shoulders, wanting to comfort, to soothe and protect, but unable to touch. "You're safe, I promise, they can't get to you now."

 "Dave," Klaus whispered, his voice sounding weak and childish to his own ears, "I don't feel so good." As if to punctuate, his body seized in a violent shiver.

"I know," Dave said gently. "Come on, Let's find you some warm clothes, yeah?"

"Yeah," Klaus agreed with a sigh, levering himself out of the water. A displaced ring of dust and grime lingered around the lip of the tub in his wake.

 Dave immediately turned his back. He was always doing that while Klaus was undressed. Klaus had found it strange at first, but had long sine grown accustomed to it. His siblings and the other ghosts didn't care what he was or wasn't wearing, and Father only cared if he was in uniform at the appropriate times. Dave, however, had leapt as though scalded the first time Klaus had begun to undress in his presence and had deliberately turned away every time after. Klaus had once asked Dave why, but he had only stammered several non-answers and refused to make eye contact. Klaus put it down to a time-period thing. Dave was an old ghost. The old days had weird ideas about modesty. Klaus had grown used to it. That was just how Dave was.

Now, though...

With Dave's back turned, Klaus found that suddenly... He couldn't remember what Dave looked like. Couldn't remember the precise shade of his eyes. Couldn't picture the cut of his jaw or the shape of his nose or the wrinkles at the corners of his smile. Did he smile? He couldn't remember. He must smile. But all that Klaus could picture was an empty, hungry blackness where his eyes should be. A mouth, gaping in a scream. Skin that melted and stretched and pulled like a mask of wet clay.

His breath came in sharp pants as he reached for the towel, grasped, missed, flailed, missed, again, _got it_. He hugged it close to his chest.

Dave seemed to be growing taller. As Klaus watched, his profile warped, one side listing, his limbs bending with too many joints. A low, desperate moan sounded, and Dave abruptly turned to face him, arms already reaching as if to steady him. With Dave's face once again visible, Klaus's world snapped back into focus and he realized that the sound had come from him self. He gave an apologetic shrug that morphed into a full-bodied shiver.

"Let's get you into some warm clothes," Dave said with a worried frown.

*     *     *

Even wearing his fuzziest sweater and six pairs of socks, buried under his blankets, the chill persisted. Klaus was exhausted. Physically, emotionally... Fatigue weighed him down, but sleep could not come. It was held firmly at bay by the fiendish screams that reverberated through the long hallways in his mind, by the spectral fingertips at his cheeks and down his spine, lingering with the promise of violence. They seemed to increase tenfold whenever his eyes slipped shut. His eyes had gone dry and achy from the force of his unblinking stare, blind to all but the shadows of featureless faces.

Dave sat across the foot of his bed. Klaus could all but feel the battle raging within him; the need to be close and comfort warred against the fear that his presence was only contributing to Klaus's distress.

Even just thinking about it, the way that sometimes Dave's face would move a certain way or Klaus would catch it at the wrong angle and it would mimic those _things_ , Klaus could feel the scream building in his throat. He bit down hard on a knuckle to stifle it. What if being down there, in the mausoleum with all of those cursed and forgotten spirits, had somehow _infected_ Dave? What if he was becoming like them? What if Klaus was losing him? What if he turned to Dave only to find that he was hungry, so _hungry_ , and he tore Klaus apart?

What if, what if, what if?

What if it was Klaus's fault?

Dave had only gone down there out of the desire to help Klaus. A misplaced sense of duty. Would he be destroyed by it?

His mouth tasted of blood. His sweater and socks and sheets were damp with sweat. Tears pooled in his eyes and he could feel a noise filling the air, separate from the ringing screams in his ears, slipping past the knuckle jammed between his teeth and raising in a high, keening whimper. The lamp flickered. Klaus blinked, and once again his walls turned to cold, damp stone. His blankets became masses of twisted ghosts, starving for a taste of life, just a little bit, so _hungry_. He blinked again and his bedroom lurched back into place.

Once again, Dave was at his side. "You're alright, Klaus," he said again, as if repetition would make the words more true. "You're out of there. You're in your bed." Behind him, the young Hispanic woman approached. She rubbed soothingly at Dave's shoulder, her eyes gentle upon Klaus. She said something in words that Klaus could not understand, but her voice was kind and comforting. "You're safe," Dave said.

Klaus's throat felt raw and ragged. If he had been able to find his voice, he might have asked, "What about you?" Instead, he burrowed deeper into his blankets, his head aching from the force of his tears and his cheeks hot with shame.

"Klaus?" a quiet call, a hesitant knock at the door. "We made you a cheesy," Vanya said, producing a blackened brick of bread oozing cheese. It had been cut into a multitude of tiny triangles, each no bigger than an inch. Behind her, Diego looked incredibly proud of himself.

"Mom always made them for me when I was sick and had to be alone, so I just thought that maybe..." Vanya drifted off with an uncertain smile, placing the plate on the small table by Klaus's bed.

"Number Seven!" Hargreeves loomed in the doorway. Tension pulled Dave's body taut. "What have I said about interrupting your siblings' training?"

"I am a distraction to my brothers' and sister's training. I must not interrupt. If my presence is required, I will be summoned," Vanya dutifully recited.

"You have not been summoned," Hargreeves pointed out.

Vanya looked to her feet and nodded before slipping from the room.

Hargreeves eyed the mess of a sandwich with distaste. "I trust that you have not been befouling your new knives with miserable attempts of culinary prowess, Number Two." Diego wilted fractionally under their father's stern gaze. "Come along. It's time for your training." As Diego, too, nodded and left, Hargreeves treated Klaus to an unreadable look. "Pull yourself together, Number Four," he said blandly. "I expected better from you."

"If I ever get my hands on him..." Dave vowed ominously as Father left as suddenly as he had arrived.

The Hispanic woman made an angry noise of agreement before following after Diego and Hargreeves.

Klaus new that he should feel something about his father's disappointment, but he wasn't sure what. He was just so tired.


	7. Griddy's

Group training, Klaus decided, was almost as bad as the individual sessions. Usually, he and Ben could get away with watching from the corner as the others waged bloody war, pretending to look busy whenever the Monocle turned upon them. Ben was a gentle soul, and Klaus knew that while the idea of using his Horrors to attack the others made him physically ill, his views on mundane fighting methods were only marginally better. Klaus thought that was kind of admirable and wished that he felt the same. However, he knew himself well enough to acknowledge that his own reasons fell more in the realm of laziness, with a healthy dose of skepticism. No matter how prettily it was dressed up, Klaus didn't see how getting knocked around by his siblings was "character building", as Luther liked to put it, or teaching him anything other than when to duck.

This time, however, Hargreeves had disrupted his usual plans to bench-warm with Ben by dividing up the other pairs who usually sparred together. He had split Luther and Diego's usual battle for dominance. Instead, Diego was scowling and flinging hard rubber knives after a cackling Five while Luther advanced upon Klaus. He wondered if this was what roadkill felt like in the moments before the truck hit.

"You must anticipate a wide variety of opponents," Hargreeves announced to the room as he observed. "All will have different strengths and weaknesses that you must learn to adapt to and exploit. Complacency has no place upon the field of battle."

Diego and Five had taken up the gauntlet with gusto. Through a series of trial and error, Five had discovered that by timing his jumps just right, he could appear behind Diego and vanish again just in time for the knife to miss him and thud into Diego's back. Diego had accepted the challenge and was attempting to have his knives follow Five even through his jumps. Both were covered in bruises and laughing breathlessly.

Allison had merely informed Ben that his Horrors were feeling especially shy today, and had proceeded to grapple him into a headlock.

And Klaus was going to die.

Even at eight years old, Luther was a solid block of muscle while Klaus stubbornly maintained the truest depiction of knobby knees. Again and again he came at Klaus like an enraged bull, as again and again Klaus scrambled out of the way like the world's most graceless matador. A small group of ghosts jeered at him from the sidelines as he narrowly flailed his way under another punch and only just managed to keep his feet under him.

"This is not a spectator sport," Klaus snapped at the hecklers.

Luther used his moment of distraction to seize Klaus by the scruff of his neck with one hand, using the other to twist his arm sharply behind his back. "Give up?" Luther growled into his ear. He tightened his grip and pushed his arm up another inch for emphasis.

"Ow!" Klaus protested. "Ow! _Owwie_! Yes, fine! I give up! Ow! Uncle! Shit!"

Luther released him with a smug smirk, even as the others froze and turned wide eyes upon Klaus.

"He said a bad word," Ben stage-whispered to Diego, his own eyes bright and amused. Diego gave a nervous chuckle.

"You waste precious time dancing around him, Number One," Hargreeves observed dispassionately. "Given more space to work with or in the right environment, Number Four could have easily continued to evade you or have even disappeared entirely. I noted three separate instances where you could have pressed for the advantage and quickly emerged victor, and yet you did not." Luther had rapidly deflated under the criticism where he expected praise. "You are the leader, Number One. It is your responsibility to anticipate cause and effect and to make use of the advantages you are presented with."

To Klaus, he noted, "If your abilities are providing such distraction, it would seem that your private training is having little effect. Perhaps a deeper immersion is required." Klaus could feel himself paling, sweat beading along his cold palms at the thought of more time in the mausoleum, but Hargreeves had already moved on to the others, his gaze cool and assessing. "You will make a better attempt to master hand-to-hand combat, Number Six," he ordered. "It is clear that your powers do not make you invincible." He made a sweeping gesture to the room at large. "Continue!"

By the end of the lesson, Klaus could feel bruises rising along his arms and torso. All of his bones ached and he wanted nothing more than to sink into a hot bath. Ben had already vanished into his newest novel and Allison had disappeared after Luther to balm his wounded pride.

"So apparently we have a few things to work on," Dave said good-naturedly as he wandered up to Klaus's side. "Lesson one: how to fall. Lesson two: how to escape a choke hold. Lesson three: how to use pressure points to make your opponent slump over like a sack of potatoes. And lesson four: when in doubt, jump on his back and hang on for dear life."

"Yeah, yeah," Klaus grimaced as he poked at his bleeding lip with a masochistic intrigue. His siblings were usually good about avoiding hits to the face. Usually. "Shove off. All the self-defense training in the world won't shake off Luther in the face of dearest daddy's disappointment."

"Who're you talking to?"

Klaus turned to see Diego and Five approaching. "Dave," he said easily. "He seems to thing I need some extra training."

"He's probably not wrong," Five said, "though perhaps paying attention to the training that you _do_ get would be more to the point."

"Dave came back?" Diego asked.

"Never left," Klaus shrugged. Diego looked troubled, but said nothing further.

Five rolled his shoulders, rubbing at a bruise on the base of his skull where one of Diego's knives had managed to connect. "Good shot," he said, grudgingly impressed. Diego glowed faintly at the praise. "So I have a bit of a craving," Five continued. "Anyone fancy-"

"Donuts?" Klaus interrupted hopefully, all thoughts of a bath disappearing into a puff of smoke.

"Nothing like a good m-m- _milkshake_ after a day's training," Diego agreed, perking up.

"To Griddy's," Five cheered, and Klaus echoed with a gleeful "whoop!"

They grabbed their coats and, as they hurried back to the entrance hall, Klaus hesitantly suggested, "Should we invite the others? They'd be upset to know we went without them."

"N-n-n- _no_ ," Diego said firmly. "We are not bringing Luther when he's in one of his moods." Klaus conceded with grace and the three brothers made their way to the bus stop and onward to sweet, sugary goodness.

"Only the three of you today, boys?" The waitress asked as they settled into their usual table.

"Guess so," Klaus said with a pointed look at Diego, who merely responded with a pair of raised eyebrows.

"Right," the waitress said indifferently as she pulled out a small notepad and pen. "What'll it be today?"

They placed their orders while Dave lingered by the bar, peering at the displays in interest. A second waitress sat by the window, eyeing Dave with a wary curiosity as the gash in her head slowly dribbled bits of something gooey over her pink uniform. Klaus looked away quickly, hoping that she was unaware he had seen her and refocused on his own waitress.

Diego scoffed at Klaus's choices of a strawberry milkshake and vanilla sprinkle donut. He seemed to be under the impression that anything that didn't involve a copious layer of chocolate was an abomination. Five, according to tradition, was unsuccessfully attempting to charm the waitress into giving him a coffee.

"Can't sell you coffee before you've hit puberty without parental consent," she said cheerfully.

"That's discrimination," Five scowled.

"No, it isn't," the waitress said.

"Come on," he pouted, his eyes big and round. "Just a small one? A teensy bit?"

"Not until you're older. Now what kind of milkshake would you like today?"

Five sulked for a moment, halfheartedly poking at the menu. "Coffee-flavored?" he asked hopefully.

"Coffee-flavored it is," the waitress said with a laugh before wandering back behind the counter.

Klaus poked at his lip, checking his finger to see if it was still bleeding.

"You held your own against Luther pretty well," Five elbowed him lightly.

"I guess," Klaus shrugged, not feeling as though he had held his own against much of anything.

"You'll get him," Diego offered his support. "Next time you'll get him."

Klaus snorted a disbelieving laugh. "How?" Luther was like a tank. Just as strong, just as indestructable, just as unstoppable.

"Lick a 9-volt b-b-battery," Diego suggested immediately.

Five squinted at him as the waitress returned with a tray of milkshakes and donuts. "Thanks," he said to her, handing over a couple of bills, then resumed his squinting at Diego. "What?" he asked eloquently.

"Just lick a 9-volt battery," Diego repeated. "That'll give you pubes and then you'll beat him for sure."

"That doesn't even make sense," Five pointed out.

"Sure it does!" Diego exclaimed, staring at Five with a pointed intensity. "Ben says p-p-people run on electricity. It won't hurt! Just gives a little shock to your system, jump-starts puberty and _Viola!_ Pubes! You beat Luther," he pointed to Klaus, then Five, "And you get coffee."

Five rubbed at his temples, willing away the impending headache while Klaus furrowed his brow in concentration as he attempted to such a stubborn chunk of strawberry through his straw. "I doubt that Ben was trying to convince you to lick batteries when he told you that," Five said. "At any rate, Ben reads too much Science Fiction. Don't listen to Ben."

"Shhhh," Diego hushed him dismissively. He pulled a square battery from his pocket. "C'mon, Klaus, just try it."

"Where did you even get that?"

"Been saving it for a special occasion," Diego said with a bright grin.

"Ben already made you lick that, didn't he, and you've just been waiting for some other gullible fool to wander along," Five shook his head in exasperation before tugging his own milkshake towards him.

"Come on, Klaus, just try it."

Klaus accepted the battery, glancing between his brothers thoughtfully. Diego offered him a brotherly smile, his eyes glinting with an oddly manic light. Klaus watched him narrowly for a moment. Without question, he trusted Five's intellect more than Diego's, yet he couldn't deny the appeal of being able to beat Luther in a fight. He wasn't too sure how pubes fell into that equation, but then logic had never been his strong point. Even if the experiment failed, he didn't think that it would hurt him too badly... and even if it did, at least the pain would be something _real_.

Klaus slowly stuck out his tongue and touched it to the battery.

"Klaus!" Five and Dave regarded him with twin expressions of fond disbelief as he yelped and jerked back from the small, sharp shock. Klaus smacked his tingling lips thoughtfully. That wasn't too bad, he decided. Strong enough to have a definite _zap_ , but not so strong as to be painful. And the lingering tingle was actually kind of nice.

He stuck out his tongue again.

" _Klaus_." More amused exasperation. Diego cackled gleefully.

 _Zzzzap_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I debated for a while if it was too unrealistic to have them go out immediately after training, all bruised and battered and tired and having no one bat an eye or question it, but.... just decided to ignore it. That was just a whole new can of worms that I was, to be frank, too lazy to deal with. If the Avengers can have shawarma after the city is destroyed, the Hargreeves can have milkshakes after training, dammit.
> 
> Also, on the fifth attempt I kind of gave up on having the pubes/battery conversation happen organically. I was having trouble toeing the line between "prankster brother" and "a bit of a dunce" and Diego is probably a fair bit out of character here.
> 
> But! I hope you enjoyed anyways. As always, thank you for reading <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Boy and The Ghost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18223466) by [NanaBeluzzi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanaBeluzzi/pseuds/NanaBeluzzi)




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